Monday, February 18, 2013

Syrian rebels and the opposition have accused the Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah of attacking Syrian villages.

The Syrian National Council (SNC) said Hezbollah fighters attacked three villages near the Lebanese border in support of the Syrian government.

Hezbollah said three Lebanese Shia were killed in the clashes. Hezbollah has consistently denied it has sent its members to fight for the Syrian regime.

The UN meanwhile has said human rights abuses in Syria have got worse.

In a report issued on Monday, a UN-appointed inquiry team said the conflict had become "increasingly sectarian... radicalised and militarised", according to AFP news agency.

The panel said war crimes by both sides were growing, although it said abuses by rebels were not on the same scale as those committed by government forces.

UN human rights investigator Carla del Ponte said it was time the UN Security Council referred the issue of war crimes to the International Criminal Court.

EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels renewed sanctions - including an arms embargo - against Syria, whilst agreeing to provide more non-lethal support to rebels "for the protection of civilians".

However they did not go as far as easing the arms ban on those fighting the Syrian regime, as Britain had wanted.

Last week, the UN said it estimated 70,000 people had been killed in the conflict since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began nearly two years ago.

'Unprecedented invasion'

According to the SNC and Syrian Revolution General Commission (SRGC) opposition groups, Hezbollah fighters crossed into central Syria on Saturday and attacked three villages in the Qusayr region of Homs.

"The Hezbollah force moved on foot and was supported by multiple rocket launchers. The Free Syrian Army [FSA] had to call in two tanks that had been captured from the Assad army to repel the attack," SRGC spokesman Hade al-Abdallah told Reuters news agency.

FSA spokesman Luay al-Miqdad called the alleged Hezbollah operation an "unprecedented invasion", according to a report in the Lebanese newspaper An Nahar.

"Hezbollah's invasion is the first of its kind in terms of organisation, planning and coordination with the Syrian regime's air force," Mr Miqdad was quoted as saying.

An unnamed Hezbollah spokesman was reported as confirming the three Shia deaths, but without saying whether they belong to the group.

AFP news agency quoted the spokesman as saying the dead fighters had been acting "in self-defence".

At least five Syrian rebels were also killed in the clashes, unconfirmed reports said.

Hezbollah is one of the biggest groups in Lebanon's governing coalition and is strongly backed by Iran, a close ally of President Assad. Mr Assad's minority Alawite sect is an off-shoot of Shia Islam.

Besides the Lebanese army, Hezbollah's armed wing is by far the strongest and best equipped in the country.

Lebanese officials have long accused Hezbollah's military wing, the Islamic Resistance, of fighting in Syria, while the US says Hezbollah provides training, advice, and logistical support to the Syrian military.

The latest reports come days after a senior commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards was killed travelling from Syria to Lebanon.

Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.

The Goals of Communism

(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)

1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.